Flight of Phanes
by ivydevoss
Summary: Gabriel should either help the Winchesters or leave them alone, but either way, he needs to just make his mind up already.
1. Chapter 1

It started – as did most things with Gabriel – completely out of the blue.

Sam woke up slowly. Usually he woke up fast, but not today. He felt his mind crawling reluctantly back up into consciousness, but before it was all the way there, a deeper instinctual part of him became aware of another weight on the bed. He turned over, fast. Gabriel was on the bed next to him, his face now about two inches away. Sam's eyes crossed involuntarily, trying to focus, even as his heartbeat was returning to normal. He heard a soft chuckle.

"Hi."

"Hi," Sam answered automatically, uncrossing his eyes and blinking in confusion at the still far-too-close archangel.

Gabriel's gaze sank a few inches and his eyes got that warm glint of mischief in them. Before Sam's brain had caught up with any of it, the angel moved forward precisely, like a small bird pecking, and kissed Sam, short and strong and sudden.

"Bye." And he was gone.

"Bye?" Sam repeated stupidly. His brain finally cranked into gear, and he sat up in bed. Too fast. Dizziness hit him. He sank down onto his pillow again, staring at the water-stained motel room ceiling. Did Gabriel really just––was he really––was that maybe a dream? Probably. Yeah.

Sam glanced over at the small clock on the bedside table. His heart sank when he saw it was already a quarter to nine. Too late to allow himself to fall asleep again and dream a new dream to replace this one. The other bed beyond the clock was empty, and Sam became belatedly aware of showering sounds from the bathroom. Dean was already up. Yeah, there was no way Sam was going back to sleep.

With a heavy frustrated sigh that he allowed himself only because Dean wasn't present to comment on it, Sam slung his legs out of bed and sat up again, more carefully this time. He had a headache. This place had the worst pillows he'd slept on in months.

When Dean emerged from the bathroom, he was in an abrasively good mood. "Mornin', Sleeping Beauty! Did your prince finally come kiss you awake?"

Sam felt like the bottom of his stomach had just dropped out. "What? Uh... what?" Did his brother know? Had he seen something? Damn it, what had happened before Sam woke up?

Luckily, Dean was rubbing his hair with a hand towel and didn't notice Sam's dismay. "Too bad you're already up, I had a nice wet sponge waiting to do the job." Dean chortled, probably at the mental image of an angry and dripping Sam, and hoisted his duffel bag onto his bed. Only upon straightening again did he notice that Sam was still sitting, half-tangled in his sheets, and staring across the room at nothing. "Hey c'mon, up and at 'em, Sammy! We wanted to hit the road early today, got to make it up to St. Louis by nightfall."

"Yeah. Yeah, right." But instead of standing up, Sam cautiously brought his hand to his mouth. It was tingling a bit, that sparkly feeling as if he'd just eaten an orange.

He became aware that Dean had paused, his towel half-stuffed into the net pouch of his duffel. "Sam. You didn't have, like, one of your weird dreams or anything, did you?"

"No." Sam shook his head – gotta snap out of it – and met Dean's eyes. "No, I told you that doesn't happen any more."

"Okay, whatever." Dean clearly dismissed it without a second thought, and Sam tried to follow his example, stretching casually and heading into the bathroom himself. That had definitely been one of the stranger ways he'd woken up recently, and he still wasn't sure if it had been a dream or not. He really hoped it had... but then again, what would that say about his subconscious? Why was he dreaming about being kissed by an archangel? What if it hadn't been a dream after all?

He stuck his head out of the bathroom door. "Dean? When you woke up, was there, uh, anything... funny?"

Dean's eyes got wide. "Yeah, it was freaky! There was this giant drooling monster asleep in the other bed!"

Sam gave his brother a dirty look and withdrew into the bathroom again, closing the door on Dean's laughter. He should have known better than to ask. The best thing now would be to forget it and focus on the new case.

***

In the car half an hour later, Sam was reviewing his notes when Dean climbed back behind the wheel, two greasy paper bags in his hand. "Sammy, gotta get your priorities straight. Eat first, then we can go over the case. We got an eight-hour drive ahead of us, there's plenty of time."

"Um, yeah," Sam muttered distractedly, turning a page in his notebook.

"C'mon, man. Egg McMuffin."

Sam wrinkled his nose but accepted the bag. Despite his brother's emphasis on prioritizing, he was a multi-tasker himself and preferred to review the facts of their new case while eating. Not that there were a lot of facts to review.

"So... 20-year-old Hannah McMurtry, junior at Maryville U, vanishes while on a long-weekend trip out of town with her boyfriend. Boyfriend later finds her up a tree... or, well, what he believes to be her."

"What he believes to be her?" Dean repeated through a mouthful of English muffin.

"Yeah. She wasn't exactly... recognizable."

"Eww, dude, I'm eating here!"

Sam managed to restrain his smirk to the side of his face that Dean couldn't see. Continuing as if to himself, he mumbled "Sounds like her body was ripped apart, kind of shredded actually... they said it looked like she had been attacked by an angry bear."

Dean spat his mouthful of sandwich back into his bag and chucked the whole thing in the back seat. "Great. Now you've put me off my breakfast." Annoyed, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a minute. "What kind of bear leaves its meal up a tree anyway?"

"No bear that I know of," Sam answered. He flipped his single page of notes back and forth, as if hoping more information might have appeared when he wasn't looking, and sighed. "We haven't got a lot to go on. The way I see it, either she was killed before she was put in the tree, or after she got up there."

"Sheer genius. I knew there was a reason I keep you around."

Ignoring his brother's mockery, Sam doggedly continued. "If she was killed in the tree, that means she must have climbed up there for some reason. In which case we need to know the reason. Talking to the boyfriend would help."

"Yeah, and if she was killed and then put in the tree?"

"Then we need to know where she was and what she was doing when it happened. And if her boyfriend wasn't there at the time, why not. Either way, we should start with him."

"And while you two are at it, keep your eyes out for pretty pictures."

The car swerved dangerously and Dean swore, taken off-guard by the voice from the back seat. Sam started too, although he'd already been surprised by that voice once today. "Gabriel!"

"_Me voilà_." The archangel smiled brightly in the rear-view mirror and then popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Seeing Sam's glance, he held up a round object and explained "Chocolate orange. It's got slices just like a real orange! My favorite."

Dean, who had recovered from his shock, muttered darkly to himself. Feeling like he ought to say something, Sam commented lamely "Everything's your favorite, as long as it's sweet."

"Very true," Gabriel replied. "So stop making that sourpuss face. Aren't you pleased to see me?"

Sam found himself, unexpectedly, at a loss for words. Luckily Dean cut in at this point. "What did you say, anyway? Something about pictures?"

"That's right, Dean-o. You know, you boys work so hard, you never take time out to smell the roses. It's important to appreciate the finer things in life, such as art. I hope you still know how to have fun." His tone had become almost reprimanding. "If you see a pretty picture, stop to enjoy it."

Dean was getting confused, and a confused Dean very quickly became an angry Dean. "Listen, dude, did you seriously drop in to tell us to take a load off and go look at some art? Because in case you didn't realize, we have actual work to do. People are getting killed every day, and if you want to just swan around going to museums and being all cultural, you have fun with that, because we're going to be saving some _lives_ down here. It's the freakin' Apocalypse, in case you forgot! And if your idea of useful advice––"

"Dean," Sam broke in before Dean could start outlining exactly where Gabriel could stick his useful advice. "He's gone."

"What a dick," Dean snorted. "Angels, man. Can never talk straight to you."

Sam caught a glimpse of color in the rear-view mirror and twisted in his seat to discover a single red rose in the middle of the back seat, where Gabriel had been sitting until a moment ago. He couldn't hold back a grin. "Stop and smell the roses, huh?"

Even though it took another seven hours to get to St. Louis, the rose didn't wilt, and while Dean was busy lugging their stuff into the motel, Sam surreptitiously tucked it into his own bag.

***


	2. Chapter 2

The next day they decided to split up. Dean was on witness duty – the victim's boyfriend, Neil Delacroix, was suffering from shock and was currently at home with his parents in the suburbs – and Sam headed out of town to go look at the location where the body had been found. Since Dean had taken the car, Sam had to hop a bus up towards Alton, about half an hour north of the city.

It was raining, and he stared dully out the window, trying to think about inconsequential things. Anything would be better than admitting to himself that an archangel had kissed him and given him flowers in one day. Thanks to research from previous cases, Sam knew the significance of red roses. A single red rose means love and passion. No two ways about it. Sam dimly hoped that Gabriel maybe didn't know about "the language of flowers", but he wasn't really fooling himself. He'd have to do something about this sooner or later. The problem was, he had no idea what "this" even was.

The bus had just crossed the river and turned north when Sam's mouth dropped open. Up on a rock face alongside the highway, there was a huge painting of some fantastical creature with a horrid bearded face, antlers, and giant flag-like wings. He glanced quickly around at the other passengers to see if they had noticed it too. A woman two seats in front of him was aiming a camera out the window, and the man sitting next to her pointed to something in a guidebook. "That's it, all right. Funny-looking thing, eh?" Sam returned his stunned gaze to the monstrous image, but it was already shrinking in the distance as the bus hurtled along the highway.

Sam stood up, holding on to the seats to keep from losing his balance, and moved forward until he reached the couple with the guidebook. "Excuse me? Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing what you just said. Do you know what that thing up there was?"

The man glanced up, looking a bit displeased at Sam's unwanted interruption, but upon hearing the question, he nodded. "Yes, that's the Piasa Bird."

"PIE-a-saw." The woman corrected his pronunciation, tapping the page. "It's a Native word. From the Illini tribe, it says here––"

"May I see that for a minute?" Without waiting for a response, Sam reached out and took the guidebook as politely as possible, with hands that were trembling with excitement.

The man sounded more amused than irritated now. "Yeah, it's a local legend. Some kind of huge monster bird that killed people. Don't know why they decided to paint a big picture of it on the rocks there. Spooky-looking thing, if you ask me."

Sam's eyes quickly scanned the page. There was too much to read now, but he took note of the correct spelling of the Piasa Bird's name and handed back the guidebook with a brief but heartfelt thanks. Stumbling back to his seat as the bus rounded another curve, Sam felt his mind racing. The monster bird had indeed been ugly, with gigantic talons and a creepily human-like face. Why had someone painted it on the rocks? How long had the painting been there? His fingers itched to get hold of his computer and start researching.

The scene of the tragedy didn't offer much. Hannah McMurtry and her boyfriend had been hiking out from a camping site, but the tree where her body had been found wasn't far. Sam located it with no trouble. There was still police tape around the site, but not a soul around, so he ducked under the taped-off area and approached the base of the tree. It was a tall maple, and you couldn't miss what had happened: the trunk and surrounding earth was drenched with blood that had leaked down from the higher branches. With a gulp, Sam sent his eyes upward, following the blood stains, and immediately saw where the body must have been found. A large branch about halfway up the tree was completely red with blood, and a few shreds of unidentifiable material were stuck in the bark. Sam fervently hoped it was bits of the victim's clothing, and not of Hannah herself.

***

When Sam got back to the motel in St. Louis, Dean was still out, much to his displeasure. Sam couldn't wait to tell his brother about the painting of the Piasa Bird. Barely pausing to dump his coat on the bed, he made a beeline for the laptop. And then stopped. A small round orange object was sitting on the closed lid of his computer. Looking closer, he saw that it was a foil-wrapped ball with a sticker on it proclaiming "Whack and Unwrap!" Sam snorted. "Yeah, right," he muttered to himself. "That's not at all suspicious."

"It's a shame how paranoid your young mind has become," tut-tutted someone from behind him.

Sam turned around, already rolling his eyes. "Gabriel. Why am I not surprised?"

"Well, you seem confounded enough by my little gift," the angel said in a hurt tone, indicating the mysterious object. "I thought I'd better pop up to defend its good name before you called in the bomb squad."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Whack and unwrap!" Gabriel replied cheerfully, and proceeded to demonstrate by grabbing it and whacking it hard against the table.

Sam warily took the proffered object and peeled off the sticker, starting to unwrap the foil. Inside he discovered a pure milk chocolate sphere. It fell obligingly apart into pre-divided slices, and Sam couldn't hold back a tiny smile. "You got me a chocolate orange."

"Told you they were delicious. Try it." Sam put a slice in his mouth and began to chew. "Good, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," he admitted, and swallowed. "Listen, Gabriel, um... why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?" The archangel's eyebrows slid up his forehead in such a perfect parody of innocence that it wouldn't have convinced anyone.

"You know what I mean. Chocolate, and... that rose yesterday, and..." Sam's voice trailed off.

"What, I can't give my favorite vessel of Satan a few tokens of my appreciation?"

"It's just a little... I don't know." Sam had no idea why he'd started this conversation in the first place. Gabriel tipped his head slowly to one side in a way that reminded Sam of Castiel. He found himself foolishly wondering if that was a thing all angels did, or if the archangel was purposely making a subtle reference that Sam wasn't clever enough to get.

Before he could figure it out, Gabriel had swiped a slice of the chocolate orange for himself and was sitting on the bed. "So, did you take time out to admire some art today?"

"That––the Piasa Bird! That was you!"

"Excuse me!" Gabriel sounded offended. "I'm quite a bit more attractive than that creature."

"No, what––I mean, yeah but––that's not what I meant! You knew about it! Why couldn't you have just told us, instead of being all cryptic?" Sam glared at the archangel, and wondered why the only response he was getting was a slow, delighted smile. "Fine, whatever. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything more from you." He sat down and opened the laptop. "Don't suppose you've got another clue for us, while you're here?" he added, and upon getting no answer, glanced over his shoulder. The room was empty. Of course.

***

When Dean finally got back, it was almost seven, and he was in a foul mood. "What a crappy day. It took me forever to find that Delacroix kid and then he refused to talk. I practically had to go Michael Madsen on his ass, and still I got bupkis! Says he lost sight of her for a minute, and then poof! Gone." He yanked his FBI tie from around his neck and chucked it in the direction of the bed. "Please tell me you got something."

Unable to conceal his excitement, Sam turned his laptop so it was facing Dean. "I sure did. Check it out. On the bus ride up there I caught sight of this thing." He had found a pretty good photograph of the monster-bird painting. "Apparently it's a big part of local lore. It's called the Piasa Bird."

"Say what about pie?" Dean came closer to the computer and stared at the picture. "You're telling me that thing is supposed to exist? I've never seen anything like it. What makes you so sure?"

"Well, first of all, look at its feet."

Dean looked closer, and gave a low whistle. "Those are some nasty claws, man."

"Talons."

"What?"

"They're called––never mind. The point is, that could be what ripped Hannah to pieces. And also, remember what Gabriel said this morning? He said to keep an eye out for pictures, and here's a huge painting of a monster right on these rocks." Sam turned the computer back around, and switched tabs until he found the one he was looking for. "Here, listen to this: Piasa means 'bird that devours men'. According to native legend, it dates from the time of the Pliocene era."

Dean sat down on the bed and began removing his shoes. "So, what, it's like a dinosaur or something?"

"No, the dinosaurs lived longer ago than that. Dean, listen: 'The Piasa was a huge flying monster with the body of a horse, the wings of a bird, the antlers of a deer, and the face of a human. It terrorized the Illini tribe of Chief Ouatoga by regularly swooping down and carrying away members of the tribe. Every day they would hear the monster's blood-curdling screams from its cave on the mountain. Numerous attack parties were sent to kill the monster but all failed, because its body was covered with metal scales that no weapon could penetrate. The wise Chief Ouatoga prayed to the Great Spirit and saw in a dream that the monster had only one point of weakness: there were no scales under its wings. The Great Spirit told Chief Ouatoga to gather twenty of his finest warriors and arm them with poisoned arrows, and to offer himself as bait to the monster to coax it into the open. When the Piasa swept down to take him, all the warriors fired as one, and the monster fell dead."

Dean was frowning. "All right. So if Great Chief what's-his-name killed it way back then, what makes you think this is it again, risen from the dead?"

"Well, I mean, like I said, Gabriel––"

"Yeah, you already mentioned Gabriel. I don't know why you're so hell-bent on trusting the little dude. Sure, this bird thing has got creepy big––talons or whatever, but there's nothing connecting it to the case. There are no records of any other killings like this one in the area. And another thing, if it's supposed to live in a cave in the mountains, why did it leave the girl in a tree?"

Sam sighed in frustration. "I don't know. But you gotta admit, it can't just be a coincidence. It's got sharp talons, the girl was torn up; it flies, she was found in a tree; and the legend of the beast originates from the exact town where she vanished. She was killed literally just around the corner from the painting on the rocks."

Dean shrugged out of his suit jacket. "Yeah, all right. So where do we start? Who can we ask about a Native American legend of a flying monster that was supposed to have been killed hundreds of years ago?"

"I'm heading back up to Alton tomorrow," Sam replied, closing the laptop. "I want to know why they chose that particular spot to put up a painting of the thing. If lore tells us it had a cave in the mountains, maybe the painting is located near the cave."

"Whoa, whoa, dude, slow down!" Dean protested. "You can't just go waltzing into its cave! This thing's covered with metal armor and eats humans. We have no idea how to kill it. Unless you've got a secret army of Indian warriors with poisoned arrows that you've been hiding from me."

Sam hated to admit it, but Dean was right. He didn't really have a plan. He had been excited that Gabriel's mysterious comment about "looking at pictures" had panned out so quickly, and now he wanted to keep going on the case and maintain that momentum. Also – although considering Dean's attitude towards Gabriel, he wasn't planning to mention this aloud – Sam was hoping that the archangel might pop in to give them another tip, now that he'd figured out the first clue.

When Dean announced that he felt he deserved a hot bath after his afternoon of wrangling with the unhelpful Neil Delacroix, Sam couldn't resist taking advantage of his momentary solitude in the hotel room. Dean was crooning Lynyrd Skynyrd in the bathroom, with the hot water running in the background, so he wasn't likely to overhear anything.

Having changed into his night clothes, Sam sat on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate over Dean's warbling. "Gabriel, uh..." He cleared his throat and tried again. "Gabriel, I looked into the whole Piasa Bird thing, and, and I really think we're onto something... and I want to say thanks for this morning, you know, telling us to look at art and all that. So, um... if you have any other... ideas or whatever, I'd love to hear them. Amen." He waited for a few seconds, then cracked open an eye. Nothing. He felt stupid. Not sure why he was doing it, he pressed both eyes shut again with determination and said aloud "Aren't angels supposed to come when you pray to them?"

This time, he opened his eyes to see a single feather floating down towards the floor. On instinct, he looked up. Nothing there but the ceiling. He reached out and tried to grab the feather, but it eluded his grasp twice before he snatched it up, a few inches from the floor. It was a dark rusty gold, soft and curled – a down feather, not a flight feather. Sam sighed and lay back on the bed. He turned the feather in his fingers a few times, and then tucked it under his pillow. Maybe Gabriel would drop by in the morning.

***


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Sam was awoken by Dean's shocked voice saying a single word: "Eggs?"

Sam blinked a few times before he made sense of what he was looking at. On the night stand in front of his face was a boiled egg in an egg cup. A small silver spoon lay next to it. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, to find Dean examining his own egg.

"Dean, what on earth–"

"Don't ask me, Sammy. I just woke up." Dean gave his egg a rough poke, but nothing happened. "Think they're legit?"

"Why would––" Sam interrupted himself to get up and pad across to check the door to their room. It hadn't been tampered with, which left only one real possibility to his mind. "The door's still locked, so I'm guessing it was an angel. And Castiel hasn't been around much lately, so that leaves..."

"Gabriel." Dean snorted. "Why did he bring us breakfast? And more importantly, couldn't he have fetched me a bagel and some coffee too?"

Sam risked cracking his egg open with the provided spoon, but there were no explosions or other unpleasant consequences, and it appeared to be a totally normal egg. All the same, he wasn't about to eat food that materialized out of nowhere in a locked hotel room, so against Dean's protestations he threw away both eggs and they set out to find their breakfast somewhere else.

They picked up their investigations where they'd left off, heading over to Neil Delacroix's house once more. Seeing as Dean's FBI-investigator approach hadn't gotten them anywhere yesterday, the plan today was to try something a bit sneakier. Dean stayed out of sight in the car while Sam went and knocked on the door, playing the role of Hannah's stricken cousin who'd just gotten into town after hearing the news.

Mrs. Delacroix wasn't the type of person who smiled, but she managed to be welcoming enough to a complete stranger. Sam had enough on-the-job acting experience by this point that he could have given a convincing portrayal of a grieving and confused relative in his sleep.

"I'm sorry to come to you..." Sam muttered over the cup of tea he'd been offered. "I just... no one else around here really knew her, you know?"

"I was under the impression she had plenty of friends," Mrs. Delacroix replied, pouring some tea for her son. Sam thought it unlikely that the boy would drink it, and sure enough, he accepted it and placed it on the end table next to his chair without taking a sip.

"Well, yes," Sam extemporized. "She was always popular at school. Everyone loved Hannah. But she must have been closest to you, Neil." A shrug was his only answer. Neil hadn't said two words in the past ten minutes. Sam decided to go out on a limb. "I can't believe I don't even have a photograph to remember her by," he said in as pained a tone as he could muster up. "I don't suppose..."

Mrs. Delacroix rose to the bait. "Neil, you've got some lovely ones from New Year's still. Don't you think you could part with one of them?"

Neil mumbled something that could have been "OK" and got up, heading down the hall.

"I'll come with you," Sam said quickly, not caring if it seemed weird. At this point, he felt like his only chance was to get the kid alone.

Neil didn't argue, but just headed for a room at the end of the hall. Sam followed him in, closing the door carefully after them. While Neil dug through a desk drawer, Sam scanned the room quickly with a practiced gaze. Nothing that really looked out of the ordinary for a mostly-absent college student's room. As Neil turned toward him with a handful of photos, though, Sam noticed a large curved shard of pottery on the floor by the desk. "Looks like you broke something."

He bent and reached for it, but Neil was faster, dashing a hand in to pick it up first. "Don't touch it!" His eyes widened a bit, as if he were surprised by his own vehemence. "I mean, don't worry about that. It's not important."

It was too late, though. Sam's interest was piqued. "Why not? What is it?"

"It's not––" Neil's gaze fell. "I don't know what it is. I found it."

"Can I see it?" By "see" Sam of course meant "touch", and Neil knew this. With a small sigh, he held out the shard, and Sam took it carefully. He immediately knew why the boy hadn't wanted him to touch it. It felt weird. Physically, it was like a piece of porcelain, but with an inner warmth to it that made it feel alive. Sam stared at the dark bluish-brown surface, almost expecting to feel it move beneath his fingers.

"Where did you find this?" he asked quietly.

Neil's voice was low as well, but he didn't hesitate to answer. The words spilled out as if he'd been wanting to say them to someone. "I found it there, where it happened. Where––where I found Hannah. It was under the tree, and it... I know this sounds weird, but it was glowing. I don't know why I took it. But listen: I don't think a bear killed my girlfriend. I don't know what it was, but..."

"It's all right." Sam could hear Mrs. Delacroix's footsteps coming along the corridor, and he knew they had no time to spare. "I know. I believe you. I'm going to figure out what really happened. But you have to let me take this."

Neil looked torn, but he could hear his mother approaching as well, and after a moment he bit his lip and nodded. "Okay."

***

When Sam returned to the car, his head was buzzing with excitement. Even just resting his hand against the outside of his breast pocket which contained the strange shard, he could feel its inexplicable warmth. When he explained this new development to Dean, however, his brother was less than enthusiastic. "Seriously, Sam? Some weird piece of crap that this guy picked up off the ground, and you think it's going to help us find and kill a monster?"

"Dean, it was under the tree. You know what else was under the tree? A couple of pints of Hannah's blood. This is our crime scene, and we have to treat it like one."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't! I'm just saying it sounds pretty far-fetched to me. And anyway, why was the guy so gung-ho to just hand it over to you? I talked to him for like an hour yesterday and got nothing."

Sam took a deep breath. "Okay, I'll admit I don't have an answer for that. But I'm not complaining. I mean, maybe it's nothing, but it's worth looking into at least. Who knows, it could be an important clue."

"Or it could just be a wild goose chase," Dean shot back.

"Did somebody mention geese?"

The question emanated from the back seat, and the brothers groaned in unison. "Gabriel!"

"Because if so," the archangel mused aloud, "I guess I know what to get you for breakfast tomorrow. Regular chicken eggs aren't good enough for the Winchesters anymore, are they? I'll admit goose eggs are tastier, but you know what's the best? Dodo eggs. Man, those things were delicious! Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have eaten quite so many. That's what you call 'killing the goose that lays the golden egg'. Now there are none left, and I have to make do with emu eggs." He sighed, sounding very put-upon, and then suddenly brightened up. "Did you know they're blue? Not like a robin's egg, but really dark. They're beautiful."

"Gabriel?" Sam interrupted. "Why are you babbling about eggs?"

"Oh, no reason. I actually came to bring you this. You left it under your pillow. The maid would have swept it away if I hadn't gotten there first." Gabriel leaned forward between the front seats, over Sam's shoulder, and tucked something small into his breast pocket, next to the shard. Sam hadn't seen what it was, but he didn't need to – his stomach gave a jump as he remembered the mysterious feather from last night. It was true that it had completely slipped his mind that morning. Now he found himself oddly tongue-tied at the sensation of the archangel's fingers slipping deftly into his pocket, moving the material of his shirt ever so slightly against his chest. He could feel the soft warmth of breath in his ear. "There you go. Don't lose it again, I don't give those out to just anyone." And before Sam's mouth had started working again or his brain had thought up a dry retort, the backseat was empty.

And the weirdest part was that Dean didn't say anything, not even his usual griping about Gabriel. He just slid his eyes over to Sam and then back to the road, with that slight twitch in his jaw that usually meant he was either angry or trying not to laugh.

***


	4. Chapter 4

After arguing that just locating the caves couldn't do any harm, Sam finally convinced Dean to head north out of the city that afternoon to go take another look at the painting on the rocks. It was a short drive, but when they were almost there Dean caught sight of a place advertising peach pie and insisted on a snack break.

"One big slice of your freshest pie, ma'am," he said to the matronly woman behind the counter with his most charming Southern-boy smile. As she cut it to his specifications ("A little bigger – just a touch more – that's the ticket!") and presented it to him steaming hot and accompanied with a cup of coffee, he commented "You ought to rename this place 'Piasa Pies', take advantage of the local lore, y'know?"

She merely smiled at this, but as Dean performed his brief pre-pie-eating ritual of trembling indecision about where to dig in first, Sam noticed a wrinkled and sunburnt fellow at the next table eyeing the two of them sharply from behind a coffee cup. Seeing that Sam wasn't eating and didn't seem inclined to watch his brother do so, the stranger settled his bill and sauntered over to their table.

"Heard you boys talking about the Piasa," he said.

"That's right. We're passing through town and heard the legend about the bird." Sam pushed the table's third chair out a few inches. "You know anything about it?"

The stranger ignored the chair and kept standing. "Yuh. It's been a tourist attraction long as anyone around here can remember. Might not be for much longer."

"Why not?" Sam asked. Even Dean cocked an ear, although a good part of his attention remained solidly devoted to his pie.

"Girl got killed, couple days ago. Bear or something did it. Reminds some people of the bloodier side of the story. Piasa was supposed to kill people. Convenient to forget that part, over the years. Local sports team even named 'emselves after it, The Piasa Birds. The original story's been cleaned up a little."

"Really?" Sam couldn't conceal his interest. "I read about the tribe of Chief Ouatoga and how the warriors were supposed to have killed the bird..."

"Yuh. Nowadays people say Chief and his boys went out, saw it, killed it just like that. Original story goes like this: Chief and his boys go out, Piasa comes to get Chief and grabs him. He had to hold on to some roots in the ground while it tried to fly away with him, and every time its wings went up the warriors fired it full of arrows. Once, twice, again, six times they shot it up before it finally stopped tugging on the Chief and fell down dead. He lay half-alive for weeks after that. That thing was brutal. Yuh. That's how my gramps told me it. Ain't nothing pretty about playing ball with the Piasa. You get tore up real bad, 'cause that mother don't die easy."

"Wow." Sam was taken aback by the immediacy of the stranger's story. It sounded like something that could have happened last week, rather than in the distant past.

"So, you'll be heading up to the bluff," the stranger continued, while Sam tried to catch up with the other man's abrupt jump in topics.

"The... the bluff?"

"With the painting. Everybody goes to look at the painting. Even got its own parking lot put in. Next thing you know they'll be charging admission just to drive past it with your eyes open. Story goes, the Piasa's cave ought to be right up there on the mountain behind it. Kids used to go up there for kicks, but the whole place is a mess now."

"What do you mean, a mess?" This time the question came from Dean.

"Mountain mining," the man said, like it was obvious. "Yuh. Don't get a lot of it 'round here, but somebody tipped off Illinois Coal and they zeroed in on that sucker. Gonna level this town to the ground soon. Throwing up debris all over the place, you can't get near the caves now."

Sam was about to ask about the extent of the caves and the location of the supposed lair of the Piasa Bird, but they were interrupted by the lady who had served Dean his pie. She bustled by, gathering plates and glasses from neighboring tables, and noticed the stranger talking to Sam and Dean. "Harvey." Her tone was acidic. "You know the rules. You can only stay if you order something and if you don't bother my customers."

Harvey, mumbling resentfully to himself, sloped off without another word to the brothers, and Sam forced himself to smile at the store owner, who clearly thought she'd done them a favor. "He'd talk the ear off everyone who comes in here if I let him, with his conspiracy theories and crazy old stories," she confided to them as she cleared Dean's plate away. "Don't let it bother you, Harvey just adds to the local color."

***

Back in the car, Sam was even more determined to get up to the caves, regardless of Harvey's warnings about the mining. After his pie, Dean was a lot more optimistic about the plan as well. When they came around the bend in the road and saw the painting, Dean laughed out loud. "Dude, whoever had the idea to stick that thing up there must have been high."

"Yeah... literally," Sam agreed, staring up at it. "I wonder how they got up there? The caves must be on the other side, but I can't see if there's a path going up or anything."

"That Harvey guy said it's got its own parking lot, right?" Dean said. "Let's pull in and take a look."

It turned out that Harvey had been right, and on the far side of the parking lot there was indeed a path leading up to the top of the bluffs. It was winding and steep, but they reached the top soon enough, and Sam peered around. Scoping out the area revealed a wide, relatively fresh dirt track leading up to the bluffs from the other side, and the track continued beyond a fenced-off area with various signs announcing "Danger! Open Mine Shafts!", "Subsidence!" and "Authorized Personnel Only!"

Dean wasn't fazed. "I'm sure some of those IDs we got in the car make us authorized personnel, right, Sammy?" he called over his shoulder, already pushing through a gap in the fencing.

The area didn't turn out to be as much of a mess as advertised by Harvey, and after a bit of poking around, Dean located a pile of rubble that was half-concealing what was clearly a cave entrance. "Bull's-eye!" he crowed. "Check this out." His feet sliding on loose shale, Sam followed Dean down the incline to the cave mouth. It was almost completely blocked by the rock pile, but there was a space of a few feet on one side, just wide enough for the two of them to slip inside.

Sam was glad he'd brought a flashlight – the previously clear sky was clouding over, and inside the cave he couldn't see more than the vaguest outline of his brother a few feet in front of him. "Ow! Motherf––" Dean swore. "Sam, can you shine that light over here?"

Concealing a chuckle, Sam did so, and illuminated Dean rubbing his forehead and grimacing in pain. "This place is hardcore, they even got freakin' stalagmites all over the place."

"Stalactites," Sam corrected automatically. "Careful, it looks like the ground gets rough back there."

Ignoring the warning, Dean ventured a few more steps toward the back of the cave. "Come on, I think I found something."

Bent almost double to keep from banging his own head on the roof of the cave, Sam gingerly made his way after his brother. "What?"

"Wait, turn the light off."

"What?" Sam was confused. "How will you be able to see with the light off?"

"Just do it." There was cautious excitement in Dean's voice, so Sam obeyed.

After a few seconds, he suddenly understood Dean's odd request. As the after-image of his flashlight's beam in the dark faded from his eyes, he noticed a very faint glow coming from the ground on one side of the cave.

Dean got on his hands and knees and crawled forward a few feet, reaching out for the glowing material. "Hope it's not radioactive," he joked. "Although I suppose it would be kind of awesome to be the Human Torch."

Sam clenched his jaw nervously, but nothing happened when Dean picked up whatever it was. "Weird," his older brother said softly. "It feels... really weird."

A split second before Dean stood up carefully to show it to him, Sam suddenly knew what it was going to be. Sure enough, in Dean's hands lay a few glowing shards of what looked like porcelain. "Oh my god," Sam breathed.

When they clambered out of the cave, it had already started to rain, but Sam made Dean stop so he could look at the shards again. Out in the gray afternoon light, the glow was already fading, leaving just that shiny dark brown surface with a touch of blue to it. When he touched it, it felt strangely warm, just like the other shard he still had in his breast pocket. He took the new ones from Dean and added them to the pocket as well.

When they got back down to the car, breaking into a run as the rain increased, they found Gabriel waiting for them, sprawled out in the backseat as if he were at home. He raised his strawberry milkshake to greet them as they got in. "Howdy, boys. Fine weather for spelunking."

Dean gave him an evil eye in the rearview mirror. "I swear, archangel or not, if you get that stuff on my seats I will end you."

Gabriel emitted a long-suffering sigh. "It's so nice to see you too, Dean. That's what I like about you, you speak your mind. No need to walk on eggshells around me." And with a snap he vanished.

"What the hell?" Dean expostulated. "What was the point of that? Sometimes I really think the dude has a screw loose."

Sam's mind was whirring. "Wait, Dean." He blocked his brother's hand as he reached for the ignition. "Hang on just a sec."

"What is it?"

Sam met Dean's eyes, a grin beginning to spread across his face. "Eggs!"

"You talking about Gabriel's boiled eggs from this morning?"

"No, eggs in general! God, I'm such an idiot!" Sam laughed aloud. "Dean, he's been giving us clues the whole time. I can't believe we didn't get it sooner. The boiled eggs this morning, then appearing in the car and talking about eggs later on, then popping in just to say something about eggshells and leaving again." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out one of the mysterious shards. "They're pieces of eggshell!" Now that he'd realized it, it seemed obvious on closer examination.

Dean's eyebrows lifted slightly in comprehension and a reluctant smile touched his lips. "Huh. That... kinda makes sense, actually. They gotta come from a real big egg, though. I guess this bird thing must be pretty huge, if it eats people." Suddenly his smile was gone again. "But seriously, why couldn't Gabriel have just told us that in the first place? If he knows all about this case, as he seems to, he could just go ahead and explain it to us and save us some time and effort. It's like he's having fun just playing with us."

Sam thought it prudent not to say anything in response to this, partly because he felt the same way. But for some reason, he didn't want to agree with Dean that the archangel was being a jerk on purpose. It was just the trickster thing, Sam told himself. It was practically part of Gabriel's nature at this point. He knew it annoyed Dean, but if Gabriel stopped playing tricks on them, he wouldn't really be Gabriel anymore. And Sam didn't want that.

***


	5. Chapter 5

Back at the motel, Dean called Bobby to see if he knew anything that could be helpful, while Sam booted up the computer. After a brief conversation, Dean snapped his phone shut, and merely shook his head when Sam raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Bobby's never heard of it. But he did point out that if it just hatched from its egg, it's still a baby. Which means it'll be weaker, easier to kill. Hopefully."

"An egg," Sam said to himself, typing feverishly away at the laptop. "Maybe the original monster laid an egg, and it only just hatched now. We have no idea what a Piasa Bird's incubation period is like. Maybe it always takes a couple of hundred years to hatch. Or maybe––" An idea had just struck him, and he turned to Dean. "What if all that mining activity disturbed the egg? Maybe it was sort of hibernating, and if people hadn't started drilling into its cave, it would never have hatched at all."

Dean shrugged. "Could be. I'm running blind here, I got nothing. We ought to start thinking about how to kill it, though."

Sam stared blankly at the computer screen. "Yeah. I don't know. I haven't really got anything either."

"Well, let's review what we do know," Dean prompted, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backwards. "How did Big Chief and his guys kill the original one? Poisoned arrows, right?"

"Yeah."

"Modern equivalent would be poisoned bullets, I guess," Dean continued. "If that even works. We don't know what kind of poison they used, so we should probably prepare a couple of different kinds. Different poison in each weapon, and just go at it with guns blazing."

"Right, but the other problem is figuring out how to get under its wings. If what Harvey told us was right, and Chief Ouatoga let it grab him and try to fly off with him while he held onto the ground..." Sam trailed off. "That wouldn't be fun."

"No shit, Sherlock." Dean shook his head in agreement.

"At the same time, though, I don't really see any other options. I mean, the Great Spirit told Chief Ouatoga that was the only way to do it."

Dean scoffed and eyed Sam. "You seriously believe that Great Spirit stuff? Sounds to me like the guy was probably high on peyote or something."

"You didn't believe in angels, either," Sam couldn't help reminding him.

"Angels, that's an idea. If Gabriel wants to hang around us all the time, he might as well make himself useful," Dean said. "Even if one of us has to play dead for the bird, Gabriel could protect us from getting too badly hurt, or heal us afterward or something. Let's ask him. He seems pretty interested in this case so far."

"I guess so..." Sam wasn't enthusiastic.

"You pray to him, I think he's got a crush on you," Dean suggested.

Sam gave his brother his best bitchface and then closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feelings that Dean's words had stirred up. "Um, Gabriel..." A crush? Did Dean really think that? Or was he just joking? Sam shook his head slightly and said in a louder tone of voice: "Gabriel, if you're around, we could use your help. We need to kill the bird and we're not sure how to do it. So any advice you have would be really appreciated." He swallowed and added "Please."

After a moment or two of utter silence, Sam opened his eyes to see nothing but his brother giving him an unreadable look. "No dice, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "He's probably busy holding up a candy store or something."

Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they had reached a bit of an impasse, and it looked like they couldn't move forward without Gabriel's help. As he was wont to do, Sam immersed himself in research as a distraction, but Dean started getting antsy after a while and couldn't hang around the motel room anymore. Claiming that he was going to get food, he headed out, and Sam kept reading up on the Piasa Bird. There were quite a few websites about it, including several different versions of the legend, but Sam suspected he'd read them all by now.

With a sigh, he closed the laptop and rubbed his eyes, tired of staring at the screen for hours without getting any useful information. It was really looking like their only option was to reenact Chief Ouatoga's story, as horrible as the prospect seemed. Then an idea struck Sam: what if the bird didn't only eat human flesh? What if it might be tempted by another type of meat as well?

By the time Dean got back a few hours later, Sam had regained his enthusiasm for the case. He explained his idea to Dean, stumbling over his own words in his excitement, and was flooded with pride when he saw Dean's raised brows and pursed lips, his rare expression of approval. "It's worth a shot. Let's head up there first thing tomorrow, huh?"

***

Hannah had been taken in broad daylight, which was a relief for the Winchesters – it was a pleasant change to find a job where they didn't have to work at night. They drove straight back to the scene of the attack, parking at the camping site that the young pair had hiked out from. On his last visit, Sam had noticed a large picnic table at the site, benches chained to it to dissuade vandals, and that was an important facet of his plan. From the back of the Impala, they lifted out a huge packet of meat: raw and bloody steak, about ten pounds of it. It had been expensive, and Sam hoped that the amount would be enough to attract the bird.

After wrapping the meat securely in thin but practically unbreakable nylon rope, Dean tied it to the picnic table using one of his famously foolproof knots. Now, when the bird flew down to take the meat, it would only be able to rise about three feet into the air again before the rope would pull taut and it would (hopefully) be unable to lift the heavy table and benches off the ground. Even if it was strong enough to do so, the added weight would be a surprise for it, and Dean and Sam could use the few moments of confusion to take aim at the vulnerable underwing area.

After the relatively simple trap had been set up, the brothers checked and rechecked all their weapons. Bobby had advised them that just dipping regular bullets in poison wouldn't work, because the heat and friction when the bullets were fired would burn away the chemicals. Instead, he told them to empty out some salt rounds and fill them with shrapnel and poison. When the two young hunters admitted that they weren't very well stocked with poison, Bobby had called them idjits and told them they were lucky to have him, because he had connections. Right in St. Louis, he happened to know, there was an old ex-hunter who really knew his way around poisons and always had plenty of illegal stuff lying around. Thanks to Bobby calling in a favor with his old friend, Sam and Dean were now frighteningly well-equipped with various types of poison. They had loaded the "poison rounds" into two handguns and two rifles. Can't be too careful with unfamiliar creatures.

Now, the waiting began. To be honest, Sam admitted to himself, there wasn't even a very large chance that the bird would show. It had just killed five days ago, and might not yet be hungry again. Or it could be hunting somewhere else. Their chances were slim, but they had nothing else to go on.

As it happened, they were in luck. Around one in the afternoon, after four hours of progressively fraying tempers (Dean hated nothing more than to stand around doing nothing), Sam was startled out of a daydream by a large shadow passing over him. He looked up so fast he felt a twinge in the back of his neck, but there was nothing there. "Dean," he hissed.

The two of them were sitting on the ground leaning against the car, which Dean had pulled right up to the side of the camping site's main clearing. "Hmph?" The combination of Dean's wider-than-normal eyes as he met Sam's gaze and the total silence that had been coming from his direction for the past few minutes left no doubt that he had been dozing, but Sam didn't call him on it. Instead, he pointed upward.

"It's here. Or it was, just a second ago. I'm pretty sure it flew over."

"Did you see it?"

"No, but there was a really big shadow that passed over the clearing."

Dean rubbed his eyes briefly and clambered to his feet. "Come on, let's get behind the car. We don't want it coming down here for steak and then changing its mind and going for human instead when it sees us." Sam followed his brother without a word, his hands sweaty on the rifle.

They were barely concealed between the Impala and the thicket at the edge of the clearing before the next flyover took place, and this time there was no mistaking it. "Holy shit," Dean breathed as they caught sight of the low-flying creature.

It was almost nothing like the picture, although from what Sam could see, it did appear to have the mixed-up body parts as described: a lithe dark body with an eagle's talons and huge wings, as well as small stubby protrusions on its head which Sam guessed were the antlers. He hadn't gotten a good look at its human face, and he was kind of glad for that. It flew awkwardly, wings seeming too large for its pony-sized body. "I thought it would be bigger," Sam whispered.

"It's just a baby, remember?" Dean replied.

"Yeah." Sam felt an unexpected pang of guilt. Sure, the monster was nasty-looking and bloodthirsty, but after all, it was just an animal trying to survive.

In the next few seconds, that feeling was completely erased, as several things happened at once.

In the distance, the creature made a wide and shaky turn above the treetops, clearly planning to come in for the kill on the meat this time. At the same time, a flash of blonde hair from the other side of the clearing caught Sam's eye, and a young woman wearing a backpack emerged from the mouth of the hiking trail. She looked exhausted and was heading for the picnic table, but stopped when she saw the huge lump of tied-up meat. Lifting her eyes, she caught sight of the Impala and the two men with rifles lurking behind it, and her mouth dropped open. Above her, the Piasa was swooping down for the kill, and this time Sam could see its face clearly. There was no beard like in the painting. This was a young face, eerily reminiscent of a chubby blank-eyed toddler, with a mouth too large for the face showing rows of sharp teeth. The monster's outsized wings flared out to brake its descent as its gigantic talons reached hungrily forward, now clearly aiming for the girl rather than the lump of meat.

Sam didn't think. Still holding his rifle, he leapt around the car and dashed across the clearing, throwing himself on top of the young woman, knocking her to the ground. The next instant, he felt blaring pain as sharp talons dug into the muscle of his shoulders. He knew it would be almost completely ineffectual from this position, but he still attempted to thrust the butt of his rifle back up at the monster to fend it off. He heard a shot from nearby and then felt the painful grip increase as his body lifted awkwardly into the air, one foot, two, three...

The rifle slipped out of his grasp and fell on top of the girl who was still lying on the ground, now a few feet below him. Sam felt himself swaying in the monster's grip, but the pain was so intense he couldn't even struggle. He saw the girl's horrified face, her mouth wide open in a silent scream, and her hands automatically lifting to take hold of the rifle. She struggled with it, trying to aim it upwards, and Sam almost laughed through the haze of pain and confusion when he realized she was going to try to shoot the monster. Or possibly him. Either way, from this angle it was more likely the bullet would end up in him rather than the Piasa. He shook his head weakly and heard the sound of another shot, a handgun shot this time. Must be Dean. Suddenly the ground was rushing up at him, and Sam winced in anticipation of the rough landing, but darkness slid across his vision and the impact never came.

***


	6. Chapter 6

As Sam began to return to consciousness, he felt like he must have had a very unpleasant and complex dream. He knew it must have been a dream, because it had involved extreme physical pain, which he was no longer feeling in the slightest. He did feel rather stiff and uncomfortable, though. Carefully, he opened his eyes a crack, and then all the way, blinking.

He was in his own bed in the motel, and Gabriel was sitting on the foot of the bed, in profile to Sam. The archangel wasn't doing anything in particular. Just sitting, as if he'd been there for a while and wasn't about to leave any time soon. At Sam's waking, though, he turned his head – very birdlike, thought Sam fuzzily – and stared at him with intensity, his eyes looking darker than usual. "Oh. Hi."

He sounded almost unsure of himself. Sam wrinkled his brow. "Gabriel?" Memories were flooding back in. It hadn't been a dream – the Piasa Bird had attacked him. Was it dead? "Where's Dean?"

Gabriel's lips drew together tightly for a moment. "Yeah, he'll be glad you're awake. Not that there was any chance of long-term damage, but the guy was fussing like a mother hen. I'll let him know you've re-joined us."

This proved unnecessary, though. As Gabriel was halfway to the door, it opened, and Dean entered, one hand rubbing the back of his neck in a tired, familiar gesture. His eyes brightened when he saw Sam, and he approached the bed with a smile. "Hey, Sammy, you're awake! You all right? How do you feel?"

"Fine. I feel great. Dean, what happened? Did you shoot the Piasa?"

"Yeah, I got it, even though it was damn hard to aim and avoid hitting you. It's dead."

"And the girl?" Sam asked.

"She's fine, she just left." Dean nodded out the window of their room, to where a red Camry was pulling out of the motel parking lot. "She helped me get you into the car and insisted on following us back to the city to make sure we were all right. I guess she felt it was the least she could do after you saved her life in that unbelievably stupid way."

"What did you tell her?"

"The truth." Dean shrugged. "I didn't feel like making up a story. I was too distracted by the prospect of you bleeding to death. All over my back seat, I might add. You're lucky your angel pal cleaned that up, otherwise the reupholstering would be coming out of your pocket."

"Gabriel––cleaned up––" Sam suddenly realized the archangel had disappeared again.

"You, mostly." Dean grinned. "Should've seen the guy. He was clucking around you like a mother hen."

"Funny." Sam gave a lopsided grin. "That's what he said about you."

"Huh." Dean snorted. "I had a right to be worried. You probably would've bled out if he hadn't shown up. That thing really ripped you up."

"So Gabriel healed me?" Realizing he was still shirtless, Sam reached an arm over his shoulder and felt his upper back, but it was smooth and unscarred – well, only as scarred as he was used to.

"Yup. Sent me out of the room first, too. I wasn't sure if he was planning to molest you after he healed you – the guy could barely keep his hands off you – but I figured you'd still prefer that to dying. He only stopped making cow-eyes at your unconscious form long enough to cuss me out for letting you get hurt." Dean grinned. "Like I could have stopped you. You were like a runaway train when you barreled into that girl."

"Heh, yeah." Sam laughed self-consciously. "I guess we kind of did end up reenacting the legend of Chief Ouatoga after all."

Later, Dean headed out to return to the camping site and bury the monster's body. Sam had insisted that he felt fine and wanted to come along, but Dean was adamant that getting half-killed by a man-eating bird meant you had to spend the rest of the day in bed, even after getting healed by an angel. So Sam found himself alone in the motel room again.

"Gabriel." He closed his eyes, but didn't bother beating around the bush this time. "Get down here. Now."

He heard the fluttering of wings almost before he was done speaking, followed by the archangel's admiring tones. "Nice, Sam, very forceful!" His voice was as buoyant as ever, but when Sam opened his eyes, he noticed that Gabriel's gaze was still unnaturally dark, and he didn't seem to have the same confident flair as usual.

"Gabriel," Sam started. "I want to thank you for, uh..." He shrugged. "Well, saving my life, I guess."

"Don't mention it." The angel's stare was really a little too intense. It was making Sam uncomfortable. "Really, though, don't. I'm not going to do it again. And you know why? Because you're never going to do something that COLOSSALLY IDIOTIC ever again!"

While yelling the last sentence, Gabriel had stalked up to Sam, and from these close quarters Sam could sense a silent buzz of dangerous energy coming from the angel, like the feeling you get when standing next to a high-voltage electric fence. Once, when Sam was about six years old, he had licked an electric fence. Luckily it had been a very low voltage, and besides a sharp shock and a weird vibrating sensation on his tongue which had lasted for several minutes, there had been no detrimental effects. Ten-year-old Dean had seen it and freaked out, asking him why the hell he would do something like that. Little Sammy had answered, truthfully, that the urge had just suddenly come over him as he was standing there. It had almost been easier to do it than not to do it. And the quiet humming of electricity was always oddly compelling to him.

Sam recalled this memory as if looking through a hazy summer heat to that day so many years ago, and as Gabriel's mouth snapped shut and his eyes shone with rage and barely-concealed fear and relief, Sam felt a tiny smile steal onto his lips. He bent forward and kissed the archangel. It was easier to do it than not to.

_~ fin ~_


End file.
